Neil Abercrombie, the Hawaiian governor who successfully led his state's efforts to pass marriage equality legislation last year, has lost his bid for a second term, the AP reports.

State Sen. David Ige, once seen as an underdog, cruised to a decisive 35 percentage point win in Saturday's primary after being dramatically outspent by Abercrombie, who also had high-profile endorsements including President Barack Obama. Ige said his win "proves that people power can be money power, especially in Hawaii." [...]

Abercrombie is the first Hawaii governor to lose to a primary challenger and only the second not to win re-election. His defeat comes after Obama last month cut a radio ad for Abercrombie, invoking the Hawaiian word for family to tell voters in his native state that Abercrombie is "like ohana to me."

The AP adds that Abercrombie's confrontational style and proposal to raise taxes last year contributed to his defeat.

Reaganite Republican:
The cold war was over long time ago. Commie is no longer a dirty name. We even borrow money from the Chinese commie. Your Republican hero Nixon was the first president who visited the biggest commie of the world i.e. Mao.

Posted by: simon | Aug 10, 2014 5:59:41 PM

Abercrombie also failed to be of Japanese heritage, which counts for a lot there

Posted by: Bob K | Aug 10, 2014 6:00:22 PM

It appears Mr. Ige vote in favor of the marriage equality bill, so it seems unlikely that this was much of an issue in the election, at least as far as substantive policy is concerned: